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Donald Trump, already under fire for a lukewarm condemnation of violence that led to the death of a woman at the weekend, on Tuesday morning shared a cartoon of a man covered in a CNN logo being hit by a train via Twitter before deleting it minutes later.

Yet the flurry of activity on his Twitter account, using violent imagery against CNN and in another incident retweeting a conspiracy theorist, raised concerns that Mr Trump’s words of condemnation about Charlottesville were being immediately and deliberately undermined.

Hank Sheinkopf, a New York political strategist, said Mr Trump had demonstrated his discomfort at openly criticising the hard Right.

He said posting and deleting an image of an attack on CNN fooled no-one.

“It’s a dog whistle to the Right,” he said. “It’s attacking the news media, attacking those he sees as the enemy.”

Late on Monday, Mr Trump also shared a Tweet from a conspiracy theorist claiming the news media is ignoring violence in Chicago – part of an argument that liberal journalists are focused only on violence perpetrated by supporters of the president.